Basically, this fear of flying is considered as a specific phobia, in which the individual concern fears a particular object or situation – which is in this case fear of riding a plane or similar mode of transportation.

Common Symptoms

Just like in any phobia type, the symptoms involve in Aviatophobia or Aviophobia may indeed vary from one person to another depending on the level of fear. More often than not, the symptoms may include:

Extreme anxiety

Dread feeling

Shortness of breath

Rapid breathing with pounding heart

Irregular heartbeat

Sweating

Excessive sweating

Nausea

Dry mouth

Speech problem

Dry mouth

Shaking

Possible Causes

It is quite a well-known fact that phobias like specific phobias normally arise from common external events (such as traumatic events) or innate predispositions (such as genetics or heredity).

In fact, according to some studies, most specific phobias like aviophobia can be traced back to some particular events, oftentimes traumatic events that happened in childhood. There are also some cases of individuals that have experienced aviophobia because of heredity, genetics, and brain chemistry as well.

A Number of Treatments

There are actually a number of treatments for phobias, like counseling, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, and Neuro-Linguistic programming.

Pharmacological medications can also help, but these do some have side effects and at times even withdrawal symptoms. They also do not cure phobias, they only alleviates or sometimes suppress the symptoms for just a short period of time. However, these medications when used together with some other treatments like counseling, hypnotherapy or the like, these too can really be effective; in some cases.

To know which kind of medication will work best for you, always consult your doctor or physician. There will always be a particular medication or treatment that will suit you, and doctors are more or less the only best persons to help you out on this.